MediaBerkman

Radio Berkman 133: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Inbox

October 8th, 2009

Author and Professor of Public Policy Viktor Mayer-Schönberger believes that digital memory is a little too perfect. Every word you post on the web, every picture, every video, tweet, and email is set in stone, archived, permanently findable. Like the proverbial elephant, the digital world doesn’t forget.

There are incredible benefits to this. And there might be consequences as well, ranging from invasion of privacy, to the impairment of human memory.

David Weinberger spoke with Viktor about some of these consequences, and how we might help our machines learn to forget.

Listen:
or download
…also in Ogg!

The Reference Section:
Viktor on the web
Viktor’s book Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age
A Full interview with Viktor on CBC’s Spark

CC-licensed music this week:
Neurowaxx: Carioca
Jaspertine: Pling

Subscribe to Radio Berkman

See a partial transcript after the jump.

Radio Berkman 133: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Inbox

Some memories you might want to hold onto forever. Like that time you and the cast of Melrose Place played Strip Battleship at Heather Locklear’s super secret Oscar afterparty.

Other memories you only want to forget, like that time Ashlee Simpson sunk your battleship and let the papparazi snap photos of you in your skivvies as you ran home weeping.

In the digital age, traces of all those memories, bad, good, or irrelevant, exist somewhere out there, just waiting for you to rediscover them. From those crazy office Christmas party photos on your Facebook, to your recent Google searches, to that email draft you thought you deleted in which you blackmail your boss for a raise using those crazy Christmas party photos! Phew… thank goodness it was only a draft.

There are those who might argue that there is value in keeping all of these digital traces around. You remember that old mantra that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it? Well, if you can never reference back to those old texts, photos, or videos, you might be putting yourself in danger of forgetting valuable lessons.

But what if all these uncurated digital memories actually pose a – different kind of danger? There is abundant evidence to suggest that all of those old photos, emails, and texts could come back to haunt us in the real world. But could there also be evidence that these old trunks of memories actually inhibit some innate need for clean slates, clear thinking, and simply using your brain? Could there be a virtue to forgetting in the digital age?

Well in fact, “The Virtue of Forgetting the Digital Age” is the subtitle and premise for Viktor Mayer-Schönberger’s new book called Delete. He spoke with David Weinberger to argue for an expiration date on our digital memories.

====

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger teaches at the National University of Singapore, and is the author of the recently released Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age. He can be found on the web at www.vmsweb.net

You can also find out more about Viktor, including his recent talk at the Radio Berkman website at blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman.

This week’s episode was produced by me, Daniel Dennis Jones, along with David Weinberger at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, in Cambridge.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 
• 

Entry Filed under: Berkman Center,radioberkman